


A Twenty Year Dark Night

by gaialux



Category: Alex Stern - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Background Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Gen, Ghosts, Past Drug Addiction, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:27:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28156824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaialux/pseuds/gaialux
Summary: Sinister happenings never go away amidst the rituals in Yale's secret societies -- and Alex finds herself yet again involved in attempting to solve a murder.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 9
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	A Twenty Year Dark Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CenozoicSynapsid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CenozoicSynapsid/gifts).



> Set post-canon, but before any exploration into Hell. Thank you to Luna for the beta!

Snow fell early that year.

Alex trudged to her last week of classes for the semester, wrapping her heavy wool coat tighter around herself. Underneath was her favourite cashmere sweater, soft but hardly warm enough, and it was times like this the bridge between cheap cashmere and expensive, exotic wool became even more apparent. She would ask Darlington for an extended clothes budget given half a chance, but that was out of the question for now.

Her boots were already soaked even as she attempted to keep on the paths that had been shovelled clean of the white drifts. Too slowly she realised that perhaps this was worse; slushy puddles of brown liquid glistening in the milky sunlight trying to break through the blackened clouds. They were impossible to dodge and, about halfway to the building, she simply gave up and let nature take its course.

Grays were still around. They always would be. Alex was not so naïve as to believe solving a single case would send them all running from her in fear. If anything it brought them closer. Men, women, children all vying for her attention both from the corner of her eyes and smack in front of her. Her need to manoeuvre on and off the snow was much more pertinent to their placement. Avoiding walking through one, feeling that dreadful cold that made her whole body shiver and nausea rise in her throat, was more important than caring if these boots were ruined. If Darlington wasn't able to buy her new shoes, she assumed Pamela would give her some of Lethe's ever present money. There were workarounds for everything in life.

She was almost at the class building when her phone started to vibrate. At first Alex thought it was one of the Grays trying to get too close, worming their way under her skin like an ill-fitting shirt that tugged and clenched at your wrists. But no. _Breathe, Alex_. She needed to learn to stay calm. Something only drugs used to be able to help her with, but now she had better coping tactics. Focus on what she could see, hear, feel, but try your damn hardest not to include Grays in any of that.

"Pamela?"

"Still on a first name basis, are we?" said a close-to-monotone voice over the phone. Even without the name flashing on the screen, Alex would be able to pick out the tone of Lethe's Oculus from anywhere.

"Okay, _Dawes_ ," Alex said, coming to a stop by a red brick building. No Grays here, only the remnants of steaming cigarette butts and floating trash. The sounds of students from somewhere further back turned into a muffled blur. "What's up? Not like you to interrupt me when you think I'm in class."

It was true; Alex had always expected calls from Darlington, even from Turner in more recent times, but Dawes still took the academic side of Yale seriously. She was always pressing for Alex to do the same.

"Yeah," she said. Alex could hear the shuffling of something over the phone. Books? Papers? Food? Impossible to tell. "Sorry about that. It's just...I've been contacted. I don't know why. Even without Darlington here this isn't supposed to be part of my job description, but." She sighed. "Anyway. Something happened at Aurelian last night."

"Something like...?" Alex had to fight not to roll her hand in a get on with it gesture. _Come on, Dawes, give me something to work with here._

In the outskirts of Alex's vision, Grays were approaching. Misty ones. Like they hadn't quite figured out how to bridge the gap between this world and the next just yet. Soon they would. In time they always did. Alex started walking again.

"Someone died, Alex. We weren't alerted. I have no correspondence, no calendar notification, not even a measly scrap of paper saying they were having a ritual meeting. I only found out because one of the new recruits freaked out and spilled it to another Lethe member."

Alex didn't ask who. Did it really matter? What needed focus right now was the fact another person had died -- one that wasn't supposed to. It still made Alex's skin crawl when she thought too deeply about all the death and destruction the houses caused, even when most of it was above board.

"Where do you need me to be?"

* * *

"Do you think..." Pamela paled as she began to talk. "That it's another ghost inhabiting a body?"

"No," Alex said. She leaned closer to the computer screen. Even with updated technology, with security cameras and editing software that could enhance and zoom, the final image was grainy at best. A woman walking -- stumbling, really -- from the law school library, Aurelian's current home. Through the door was a great, white light that seemed to engulf the rest of the frame until the door was slammed closed and, as if in synchronicity, the body collapsed on the ground and did not move again. Alex fast-forwarded through the rest of the video until it cut off into darkness.

Pamela turned the tape off. "The body was reported this morning. Somebody screamed, alerted someone else, and it spiralled from there. Nobody shared any details about _where_ until the freshman I mentioned came along. Even the police cleaned it up quick. I couldn't find a stray piece of tape when I looked."

"You went to where the body was?" Alex couldn't keep the incredulity from her voice. Pamela had come a long way from the reclusive Oculus who would rather hide out in the Hutch corner, headphones stubbornly over her ears, than engage with a society crime.

"I wanted to see if it was a joke," Pamela said. "And I thought it was, to start with. After Belbalm there's been whispers, rumours, of death. All unfounded, of course, and I thought this was more of the same. Then I got my hands on the tape and, well."

_Well, here we are._

"Did you talk to anyone at Aurelian?"

"What?" Pamela said. "No."

Of course not. She might have been taking steps to get her hands dirtier, but there was still a wide berth between investigating a crime scene and actually speaking to the people involved. Alex knew. Given the opportunity, she would delegate everything to do with the nitty-gritty to Darlington or someone else. Let them pick up the pieces of lies and whispers people were prone to and leave Alex to simply observe.

"Guess I know where I'll be going," Alex said with a sigh.

She swore Pamela actually smiled.

* * *

The Lillian Goldman Law Library was the biggest of its type Alex had ever seen. The architecture so similar to the rest of Yale; which was to say, daunting and ominous. The building itself reminded Alex of something you would see in a British mystery movie -- orange brick, grey tiled roofing, and a cacophony of stained glass windows pointing in every direction. Inside were multiple reading rooms Alex was prone to fall asleep in, either researching something for Lethe or doing homework she was weeks behind in. Even those rooms that were attempting a cosy, homey feel were ostentatious in their appearance; chandeliers hung from the ceilings and large, intricately designed glasswork allowed in rays of sunlight that would slice over whatever book you had laid out on one of the old wooden desks.

Alex, however, did not go into any of these rooms. She stepped through the alcoved doorway and into the library. Rows upon rows of books were situated on either side of the long central room. In the middle of them all, desks and people and laptops. A quiet hum was heard over it all. Alex knew Aurelian had made the basement their current home -- or at least their current place of ritual meetings. Where the members themselves were on any given day depended on their own lives. It was the society of language; most of them were true intellectuals in pursuit of higher things, using the societies to elevate their studies rather than the other way around.

She knocked twice on the door of the basement. The same type of knock you would offer a neighbour when you went in search of a cup of sugar. Or, in the case of Alex's past, when you wanted that gram of coke from your known dealer. That was to say, it was breezy and easy. Something Alex never thought she would be in regards to one of the societies.

A young man answered the door. Dressed in black clothes that looked at least two sizes too big for him, the sweater hanging like a cape from his shoulders. His scruffy, brown hair covered his upper face almost to his nose.

"Yeah?"

Certainly not the type of greeting Alex was expecting. Over her time in Lethe she had received greetings that ranged from warm to angry to icy cold. Never, however, did people come across as indifferent. It seemed much too risky to view a Dante as anything other than someone to be watched and kept tabs on. She could, after all, make or break their ability to perform rituals with a single report to the dean.

"I'm here to see your head of house," Alex said, drawing herself up to her full height. She always felt as though she had to prove herself in these situations. It didn't matter how often Darlington tried to convince her otherwise. Tried to tell her that she was the one in control around here.

"Uh, why?"

"I'm Dante," Alex said in a voice she hoped came across as confident. Truth was, even after everything that went down in the months prior, she still struggled to do all of this without Darlington by her side. She wished Pamela had accompanied her. She might have stayed a silent shadow at Alex's side but at least she would be there.

The boy's eyes grew wider and he took a step back from the door. Behind him, Alex could see the start of Aurelian's temporary quarters. It looked similar to the rest of the law school library with its rows of books and collections of desks, but along the back wall, a cold grey slab sat underneath a window. The colours coming from the sun made it dance an eerie purple that reminded Alex of the crossover from the borderlands. She shivered and hoped the boy would think it came simply from the outside chill.

"Are you going to let me in?"

Before he could say anything or Alex could even react, the door slammed in her face.

She knocked again, hand slamming on the wooden door so hard and long her skin began to sting. She would have started yelling, demanding, if it weren't for the risk of one of the library staff coming down to see what was going on.

_"A lot of them are in on it," Darlington had said. "But don't draw attention, okay? There is no point to it."_

"Fuck," Alex muttered under her breath, then turned and left.

* * *

"Do we go to the dean or, or..." Pamela trailed off and sucked her lower lip into her teeth.

"We could, I suppose," Alex said. "Not like Aurelian isn't skirting thin ice already with their headquarters."

It was true -- the law buildings were one of the few that still allowed Aurelian to conduct their rituals. It helped that they were the ones who benefited most as outsiders, using the secret societies to help them pass the bar exam or cram in more classes without exhaustion creeping its tendrils over their body. A large price to pay for something so unimportant, Alex thought, but who was she to judge another's motive?

"I don't even know if the faculty has linked the murders," Pamela said. She was sitting in a large armchair in The Hutch, legs curled up under the oversized grey hoodie she always worse. Alex herself was sprawled on an old desk chair, one foot up and the other down, her phone unlocked but clear in front of her. She didn't know where to go next. "Or whether they should be, after everything."

Pamela stopped worrying her lip. It was now an angry red.

"You think Lethe should deal with it themselves. Ourselves, I mean." It was still difficult for Alex to think herself a part of anything organised. When she was younger, she certainly thought herself a member of the Stern duo with her mother, but since then? Even with Hellie and Len it was always too messy to be considered a formal group.

" _Our_ selves," Pamela said, a heavy emphasis on the word that made it seem to float through the barren room. "Yeah, that's an idea."

"You mean--"

Pamela shrugged and drew her legs up further under herself. She resembled a rather large yet scrawny tomcat. "I think we have three options: leave it for the police, involve the university, or figure it out on our own."

Alex dropped her head into her arms and sighed.

* * *

The library closed at midnight. In winter, that felt a lifetime from sunset. Pamela and Alex waited in The Hutch, sipping coffee and eating chips Alex scrounged up from one of the kitchen cupboards. Each one tasted either of cardboard or soggy newspaper, no in-between, but Alex was starving. She hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, too focused on getting to Pamela after the incident at Aurelian's basement. She knew that time was of the essence here, that a murderer could flee the scene in mere minutes. But somebody in that society had to know something. Possibly multiple somebodies and multiple _somethings_.

"Better to go earlier or later?" Alex asked, on her third mug of coffee for the day. Combined with a near empty stomach she was a jittering mess. "Do they have security?"

"Exterior security," Pamela said. She was still curled up in the armchair but now, at least, her legs were free and dangling. "One, maybe two guards. There are only a small amount of computers in there, and with Aurelius using it as their unofficial dorm they figure it'll be safe."

"They're trusting a group who work with binding and divination to protect an entire law library?"

Pamela shrugged. "Is it so unusual? The higher-ups trust Lethe to keep everything above board amongst the societies."

It was true, and much of that responsibility and trust fell on Alex herself. She tried not to feel sick.

"I say we go shortly after it closes. Even the current security is probably lax, finishing a cigarette before clocking on for duty. We might catch a few student stragglers, but that's easy to explain away."

"Because you use that library?"

Pamela smiled around her mug of black espresso. Alex could smell the bitterness emanating all the way to where she sat. "A thesis takes you far and wide, Galaxy Stern."

* * *

Grays were there. A good distance from the library, but still close enough to make Alex afraid. It wasn't normal. The enchantments and warding from the society houses kept Grays a good distance away, and even the ones that did toe the line felt agony at doing so. Alex usually saw them much closer to the main campus, hiding out between classrooms and in the grassy quadrangles. Not here. Not where Aurelius were behind the closest door.

"Grays?" Pamela whispered.

Alex nodded.

None of them looked familiar, but that meant little; after the Bridegroom Alex had stopped taking in too many details. She would speak to a Gray if she had to, for Lethe duty, but otherwise she put on her blinders and walked around silently. _Pretend they're not there, Alex. Pretend, like when you were a young girl._

"Do they know anything?" Pamela asked.

"I don't think so."

Even the ones that looked towards her, pleading in their eyes or anger in their mouths, didn't seem eager to share information. No hands reaching out, no open mouthed yells, and certainly nobody who looked even faintly light the grainy image on Pamela's CCTV footage.

"That would make things easier, wouldn't it," Pamela said, perhaps more to herself than to Alex. "You simply talk to one..."

"I would really, _really_ rather avoid going to the borderlands again," Alex said, unable to avoid the shiver that ran up and down her spine.

"I know," Pamela said.

Nobody had come from the library in a good while. "Should we?" Alex asked.

Pamela nodded.

The back of the building was rather different than the front and sides that were visible to the public and students. Certain sections had been replaced by more modern additions, such as a dull white wall and small, locking window that led into a cleaner's room. It was there Pamela took herself and Alex.

"Think we'll fit?" Alex asked, glancing up at the window that had to be as high as two of her. It had the type of locking mechanism she remembered from her old school, the one where you wind a handle round and round and it stops only inches from the frame. Alex might be scrawny, but _that_ scrawny?

"Sure," Pamela said. "I've done it before."

"You've broken into the law school library?"

"Well, no." Pamela was surveying the area, her eyes flying in every which direction. Then she stopped. Alex followed her line of sight to a set of garbage cans pushed into a recess nearby. Pamela looked at her. "Might help?"

Might as well try.

They maneuvered the stinking plastic bins into place and jumped on. Pamela was more dexterous than Alex would have thought for someone who sat at a computer day after day, night after night; but, then again, Alex should have known there was more strength to Pamela than what she showed on the surface.

Even with the added height, they were still too short to even reach the ledge that jutted out minimally from the white rendered wall.

"Boost me," Alex said, stretching her arms up. "I'll pull you in."

Pamela laced her hands and took Alex's worn, wet boot into her palms. Stronger than she looked, too, sending Alex almost flying up to the window. She grabbed hold of the wooden frame and kept herself steady before sliding ass over teakettle into a room with a cement floor.

"Fuck," she muttered, rolling onto her back. Her knee stung and she hissed out as she stood. It wasn't work if she didn't come out of it with at least one injury. Alex hobbled back to the window and stretched her hands down.

Pamela had to strain to reach. Fingertips brushing against each other as Alex leaned further, further. Pamela jumped and Alex managed to grab first one hand and then the other. She hoisted Pamela ungracefully into the half open window.

"Well," Pamela said, standing and brushing herself off with less annoyance than Alex herself had shown. "That worked."

"Come on."

They left the janitor's closet of a room with its brushes and mops and brooms and chemicals and went into the library. It was eerily silent. Books and desks looking like they were asleep in the darkness of the room. Only a few stray lights remained on, more for security than anything else, Alex assumed. What other light was visible came through the windows from the moon above. Not full, thankfully, or Alex would be on a lot more work detail.

"Basement?" Pamela asked, her voice low.

"Yeah."

The stairwell leading to the basement was right near where they had come in, thankfully, and Alex didn't need to get out her phone and turn on the flashlight in an attempt to distinguish between basement door, study room door, and reading room door. This library had vaults of texts, of old law reviews and criminal trials. A wealth of information, really, and Pamela must be right at home.

"Here," Alex whispered as she turned the large, brass door handle.

The stairs were cement. Old. Chipped in places and stained with what looked like spilt paint in others. The first two were shrouded in complete blackness but, by the time they turned onto the third, light from the Aurelian common room floated up toward them. Five steps, six steps, and Alex was back at the door she had been shut out of just a few hours earlier. She and Pamela should have found some way to break in here. Warding was made for Grays, not for people, no matter what others may think.

"You going to knock, Stern?"

Alex took a breath and did.

A few seconds passed, during which time Alex was about to tell Pamela they would have to come back with a new plan, when the door opened. Standing there this time was not a boy but instead one of the seniors Alex had seen during her supervisions. He was dressed simply, in a loose black shirt and dark jeans, glasses perched on the bridge of his nose and a book held open in his hand. Alex couldn't see the cover.

"Dante," he said. "Pleasant surprise. Would you like to come in?"

The freshman from earlier must have let them know that Alex came by, that she was sticking her nose somewhere Aurelians wouldn't want it. This could be a trap. A messy, bloody trap, but then again, did they know Darlington was gone? That nobody could follow up on Alex being here since the only other person that even knew about it was standing beside Alex right now?

Of course not, and that was what gave her strength to step over the threshold.

There was no ritual in progress. No collection of blood or talismanic books opened to pages on slaughter and sacrifice. This could be the meeting of any group, secret society or not, in the late evening without alcohol or drugs for entertainment. Yet Alex knew there had to be something more to what was visible right here than the half a dozen students she could see dotted around.

"Do you have a reason to be here, Dante?" he asked. His voice was smooth, even, but there was a hint of something underneath. Like the fire of a candle wanting to catch hold of a swaying nearby curtain. He turned to Pamela and this time the sneer on his face was evident. "Or you, Oculus? We don't see you around very much these days."

"Have you forgotten about yesterday's death?" Pamela asked.

One of the people reading by the fire, a girl in a thick fur coat, glanced over. When Alex caught her eye, she quickly looked away again. _They knew something_. They had to.

"What body?" The senior said, his face back to its blank slate of pleasantry.

"Don't play dumb," Alex said. "You know rituals not reported to Lethe and supervised are strictly prohibited. Not only are you breaking society laws, but also Yale's. Don't you think your ice is a little too thin to be skating on? How many places have you been kicked out of now?" The student who looked over before now glances at them again. Alex spoke louder. " _Murder_ is against both the rules and the laws."

"We have no idea what you're talking about." The senior stepped forward. He smelled of cigarettes, the scent reminding Alex too much of Len. She wanted to run. "Unless you have some evidence, Dante? Something more to investigate?"

"Not right now," Alex said, because what else was there?

* * *

The next day, Alex had class. She would have ditched if her grades weren't failing so dismally and Pamela didn't push her to attend.

"I can spend some time researching," Pamela said. "See if I can work out _who_ the victim is at least."

Since Alex couldn't think of anything else to do, she relented. Packed her bag, said goodbye to her housemates who still weren't sure what to make of her, and went out into the softly falling snow.

But she couldn't help herself from going the extensive way past Lillian Goldman Library. There, right outside the ornate archways, was a Gray Alex had never seen in reality before but could recognise unmistakably.

"You're the one, aren't you?"

The Gray looked right at Alex and nodded. The wounds in her hands were so visible now, standing out red and angry. Alex hated paying so much attention to the Grays that they no longer were gray. They became the colours they once were, bright clothes and hair and eyes. People you could see walking in the street and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference apart from their silence and injuries.

"What happened to you?"

Even though Alex knew better -- how the Grays could hear her but not her them, how the distance in communication was just as vast as the space between life and death -- the words were dragged from her mouth. This young woman, no older than Hellie was when she was murdered, looked at her sorrowfully. Begging but, behind that, the flash of anger Alex knew too well.

The Gray reached out. Touched Alex's hand. Even with a glove on, the feeling was like ice. It shocked Alex to her core and she couldn't help but cry out. The Gray flickered. Disappeared. Leaving Alex alone in the grassy, triangular area with dozens of eyes staring her down.

* * *

Alex couldn't pay attention in class. She was going to fail, and her leeway thanks to everything going down with Belbalm was fast running out. Yale's faculty connections to the secret societies could only offer so much. _Pull your shit together, Stern,_ she told herself, _Or you're fucked_.

She went back to the Hutch straight after, avoiding any Grays that tried to edge into her vision. She didn't have time for them. Not right now. Too many problems to fix, no time to do it. This gig was supposed to be her checking in on rituals on a routine basis, not chasing down ghosts. Alex couldn't believe in how little time things had been altered so drastically.

Pamela was studying, as usual, when Alex entered the front door. She could compartmentalise her life so well; study one minute, research for Lethe the next, and track down Grays in another. Alex was more impressed by Pamela than anyone else she had met in Lethe thus far; though she'd never say that to Darlington, whose ego would be ruined.

"Anything?" Alex asked.

Pamela pulled down her headphones. "What was that?"

"Asked if you'd found anything," Alex said, flopping onto a nearby chair.

"No," Pamela said, sighing and shutting the Moleskine notebook she had open. Alex hadn't seen it before and it intrigued her -- was it something to do with her thesis, or was Pamela actually struggling to separate these past of her life? "Think we might need to call in the big guns, at least work out who the victim is."

"The police," Alex said.

Pamela shrugged helplessly. "This isn't my forte. If you have another idea, I'm all ears."

No. No, she didn't. This wasn't Alex's forte, either. Or at least she didn't want it to be.

"I can do it," Pamela said. "If you want."

"No." Alex shook her head and held in the sigh that wanted to break free between her teeth. "Better for me to. I'll be back soon."

* * *

Turner was in, thankfully, and sitting behind the tinted plexiglass that made up the majority of the police station. It made Alex claustrophobic. Like the walls were trying to take her into themselves and crush her into nothingness.

"Stern," Turner said the moment he saw her. His face paled, his eyebrows scrunched up into themselves. "What's going on?"

"Can we talk?" Behind him was a shadow of another person, making coffee or writing a report, it was hard to tell.

Turner wanted to say no; that much was clear to Alex. She couldn't blame him. Their places switched, she would want to stay as far away from the crazy ghost-seeing girl as possible, too, but that wasn't the case and Alex was here and desperate.

"Please?"

He sighed audibly. "I'll buzz you through."

They went into Turner's office which was as small as Alex remembered it. Boxes were stacked in the corner by the door, and a large desk with an ancient desktop computer took up the remaining space. Alex leaned against the wall; Turner against his desk.

"You hear what happened at the law library?" Alex said. She reached out her hand, within it a tiny white USB with the CCTV footage Pamela had taken from the scene.

"No," Turner said. "But I'm sure you'll enlighten me. What's on this?"

"A murder."

Turner didn't look nearly as interested as Alex thought he should be. He went around his desk and plugged the USB in. The computer made a concerningly loud noise as it began to boot the program.

"Where did you get this?" Turner asked, moving the mouse. It was one of those old-style ones with the ball underneath. The type Alex hadn't seen since elementary school.

"Lethe has sources."

Turner raised a brow, then stared at the screen.

"I spoke to the Gray," Alex said, quietly, her heart in her throat. "The ghost, I mean."

Turner said nothing.

"Well?" Alex said when she thought enough time had passed for the body to be shown.

"We don't have a body reported, Stern," Turner said. His head was shiny with perspiration that dripped, as Alex watched, down his nap and into the tight collar of his blue shirt. "A _ghost_ hardly counts."

"You...didn't get a call in?" 

Alex's guts knotted into themselves. There was no body outside the library. Did that mean--

"Fine," Alex continued. She had to work to keep her voice under control, to not start in on the hysterics that threatened to be pulled from her straining vocal cords. "Can you at least look for a missing person. Young, nineteen to twenty-two. Brown hair. Blue eyes. Dark skin, darker than mine but not as dark as yours. Latina, maybe? She's short -- tiny short. Wearing a threadbare purple coat and--"

Turner shook his head. "Stern, you're describing at least two dozen young women who have gone missing in the past year. How can you even be sure she died the other night?"

"You don't believe me." It wasn't a question. 

Turner sat on his worn leather chair. It swayed gently with the movement of his body. His eyes had deep circles underneath them and his lips were chapped. Angry red and white rawness. When was the last time he slept? Did it have to do with the last case Alex was a part of? She always regretted involving other people in cases involving the Grays, but she was desperate. The girl deserved justice. This was the only way Alex knew how to get it. "I just don't see how a murder happened without any of us here at the force having it on the radar."

"You saw the footage!" Hysteria was clawing its way at Alex's throat like a hungry spider closing in on a trapped, unsuspecting fly.

"It looked like a person -- I can't even tell if that was a man or woman to be honest with you -- falling over after too much alcohol. They probably got up and stumbled home sometime before dawn. Stupid decisions are not a crime. Not usually, anyway."

"So that's it, then?" Alex should never have come here. It was the same as last time -- nobody taking her seriously until it would be too late. Until more deaths had been unearthed. "You'll do nothing?"

"I'm sorry, Stern," Turned said with a shrug of his shoulders. "My hands are tied."

* * *

"The police didn't take the body."

"What are you--"

"That body didn't leave the library. I'd bet money on it."

"Shit."

* * *

Despite Pamela's advice otherwise, Alex found herself back at the library basement. She didn't knock on the door; simply turned the handle and, to her surprise, it creaked inwards.

The basement here was more a series of interconnected rooms than the type Alex had seen in homes where you were lucky to have a door separating the concrete main floor from the water boiler. Throw in a few bean bags, an oversized TV that cost fifty drug deals, and a bar fridge and you had Alex's vision of a basement before she came to Yale. Now she imagined rows of books, plush armchairs draped in ornately embroidered blankets, and several more fireplaces than any one area could need. 

"Hello, Alex."

Alex pushed the door further and stepped inside. The senior from the other day -- Alex still hadn’t caught his name -- was the only one here, at least in the main room. Who knew what was hiding behind any other of the closed doors.

"You disposed of the body, didn't you?" Alex said. "What did you do, huh? Bury it? Chop it up into little pieces? Incinerate her in one of your two dozen fireplaces?"

The senior shut the book he was reading, the same one from the first meeting, maybe, or something similar. _Linguistics_ was the first word of the title, but he covered the rest of the cover with his glasses before Alex could get a good look.

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"The girl." Alex stepped closer. Into the unnaturally hot room. "We have footage -- _evidence_."

He stood, stalking closer. Alex kept her ground.

"How about, _Dante_ ," he said, looming down over Alex. From this close Alex could see the blocked pores scattered over his nose and cheeks. "You spend a bit more time tracking down your Virgil, hmm? This long story you and all the others are spouting is so thin I can see into its bones and meat."

Alex took a step back.

"Leave now," he said. "Or perhaps yours will be the next thing Lethe needs to track down."

It was a threat if Alex had ever heard one.

Alex angrily trudged from the library, her breath coming out in great white bursts of frustration. What would Darlington do? What would Turner do? What would _anyone more competent than Alex_ do? Those were the million dollar questions.

"Hey! Uh, Dante," came a voice.

Alex turned to see the student from the other night behind her. She had on the same coat, but now Alex could tell the fur was fake. The type of jacket Alex and Hellie would scour thrift stores for, imagining themselves as rich, eccentric older ladies with elaborate wardrobes.

"It was an accident," she said. Her eyes shifted right and left then back again. Afraid. Afraid of her own society. "But she's gone. Don't dig. There's nothing to find."

Before Alex could say anything, the girl was gone.

* * *

Alex went back to her dorm before her roommates sent a search party after her. She needed to keep up pretences -- school, some semblance of a social life -- even amidst all the other drama. She locked herself in her room, took out her phone, and dialled the number under Oculus.

Pamela answered immediately. Alex told her about going back to the basement, about the confrontation and threats, about how there was so little left Alex had any idea of what to do.

"A ritual gone wrong?" Pamela said. "Someone finding something they shouldn't? I don't know, Alex, and I'm not sure we can ever know."

That was the problem, wasn't it? All the questions with so many potential answers. There was only so deep Alex could dig.

This seemed like a time when, even armed with a pointed spade, Alex would simply hit concrete over and over again.

"Do we report it?" Alex asked in a quiet voice.

"We could."

"Then what?"

"I don't know."

* * *

There were a limited amount of times in Alex's life where she was willing to walk directly up to a Gray. The first was as a child, when she was trying to understand what was happening, and saw a young girl at a playground her mother took her to. Half a dozen visits, she remembered, was how long it took Alex to work up the courage and walk toward the girl dressed in a long, pale dress with her hair in tight curls unlike anything Alex had ever seen before.

"Hello," Alex had said. "Want to play?"

Alex was the weird, new kid who nobody wanted to get close to and she was on the constant lookout for a buddy to push her on the swing. This girl looked as isolated as Alex felt. Not even a guardian in sight.

The girl didn't speak. All she did was look at Alex with these wide, sad eyes until Alex turned to play on the swings herself, legs flailing in an attempt to get higher and higher. When she looked over again, the girl was gone.

Now Alex was walking towards this Gray, apprehension in her throat, but a lack of fear she found strange. No matter how much she had to do with ghosts it never felt easier. Not until today.

There were a few people dotted around near the library, but most had sought out new places for lunch or study as snow continued to blanket the Yale campus. It would be Christmas soon, Alex thought with a start, and she hadn't even called her mom to make plans.

Perhaps the confidence in walking up to this Gray came from Pamela standing beside her. She was wearing the type of coat Alex hadn't imagined her owning, long and black with intricate gold button details from throat to floor. A gift, she'd said with a small colouring of her cheeks, from an ex. Alex didn't press further.

"Is she here?" Pamela asked.

"Yeah."

A few Grays were here, actually, milling around in skirts and t-shirts and swimwear as though snow wasn't falling. But Alex had eyes only for one.

"I wish we had a name," Alex said.

"Yeah. Me too."

"I'm sorry," Alex told the Gray. Empty, useless words that floated out through the void. The girl simply smiled.

Alex had so much more she wanted to try and say to her. For a moment, one striking yet terrifying one, she wanted to offer to meet the girl in the Borderlands. To ask her story and find the solutions. But, even as she was thinking, the Gray started to fade into the quickening snow drift that had started up.

"Come on," Pamela said, taking Alex's hand firmly in her gloved one. "Let's go home."

**Author's Note:**

> I hope, despite the open ending, there is a satisfying enough conclusion here!


End file.
